Rite of Passage

von Marcus Krug

 

I could not tell if it was a man or a woman. The face was that of a woman, a pretty one, as I clearly recall. The lips were deep red, like blood, yet the colour seemed somewhat clumsily applied. The body, rather slender, was that of a delicately featured young man. The word androgynous comes to mind.

I had just landed with a boat on the coast of the continent of inevitable times. The weather, even though still sunny with only a light breeze, was yet urging me to move on. It didn’t seem to me that the town, an even uglier appendix to the filthy port itself, had anything special to offer. I decided to head off.

The way the person moved had something otherworldly about it. Every step, every motion with its legs and arms and hands seemed perfectly in harmony with its surroundings. No move was unnecessary or conducted in haste.

I was walking the dusty road, which was leading me outside of town, when after no more than three miles, a person suddenly stepped out of the bushes onto the dirt road; some ten yards ahead of me. I stopped. The person came up to me and put its elegant left hand gently on my right, which itself was resting on my old walking stick.

“My name is Val. Would you like some refreshments?” the person asked in a dark yet female voice. If I hadn’t felt thirsty before, after Val had asked me, I certainly did.

“Yes, please.” I said.

“Then follow me, my dear.” Val said. And with its delicate left hand, it parted a thick elderberry bush like it was nothing.

“The staff.” Val simply said, before stepping effortlessly through the row of hedges.

“What about it?” I said. But Val didn’t even turn around, it only pointed with its roundish right hand to a spot near the bushes to its right and said, “You will have to leave it there. You won’t need the staff where we go.” Where do we go? I thought bewildered. And to my very own surprise, I left the walking stick at that spot and followed Val through the bushes.

 

I could not tell – at first – if Val’s right hand was injured. Because I didn’t remember the elderberry bushes having had any kind of thorns for protection. However, Val’s right hand was clenched and blood seemed to be running in a thin red line out from inside its fist.

After the bushes, we walked up a steep hill. Even though I was in good shape, due to my journey for all my life all the way to here, I ran out of breath after only fifteen minutes of steady hill climbing. Val, however, seemed to manage effortlessly.

After a while, though, I decided to have a break. At the foot of the hill it had been just a breeze, but the higher we were climbing the stronger and colder the wind got. When I turned around to have a look at what we already had accomplished, I was astonished not to see the waters I had crossed before landing on this shore. I had run into Val only a couple of miles outside of town, so I clearly had to be able to see the ocean from up this hill, had I not?!

But what I saw could not be further away from what I expected to see. The only bodies of water I did recognise were two rivers. They were coming from different directions, bent around the flanks of the hill, and eventually converged roughly at the spot where we must have come through the elderberry hedges. But to my very own puzzlement, there were no elderberry bushes at the bottom of the hill.

On top of it all, we were not even climbing a hill any longer, but a full-grown mountain, which seemed to be located in the middle of what appeared to be a vast valley surrounded by even higher, snow-capped mountains. The valley and the mountain, we climbed, didn’t have any kind of notable vegetation, neither trees nor bushes, at all. Only grass and moss which mostly clung to the rocks, that were scattered all over the place. A dreary and inhospitable scene, I must admit.

Further up in a distance, I saw Val joyously hiking up the mountain. And every so often, I happened to see how Val raised its right hand up in front of its face. To inspect the injury on its hand. That was at least what I used to think. I didn’t catch up with Val on our way up the mountain. I held its pace, at a distance, though.

And then I saw a bird. A little redbreast was lying on the ground. It looked like it had been crushed by something heavy. Feathers were missing here and there. Underneath, tooth-marks were visible, which looked like they had been caused by a predator’s bite. Vivid red bloodstains were spreading. Otherwise, the bird seemed strangely deflated. However, this was only the first bird among quite a few others on the path up to the top of the mountain.

The sun was already setting when we reached the mountain top. We had been climbing for many hours and the refreshment that was offered to me earlier that day was now more needed than ever. But the crest of the mountain didn’t have much to offer; only mysterious piles of random rocks of different heights. And then there were the skulls and bones. On a second look, the area around the obscure rock pillars was littered with animal carcases. Mice, rabbits, rats, and among others birds.

It wasn’t before Val turned around to look at me that I saw its crimson lips, redder and seemingly bigger than before. And in the corners of its mouth there stuck little feathers. When Val noticed me staring at its mouth, its tongue flicked out, caught the feathers and sucked them in. Almost instantly thereafter, Val spat out a bloody knot of feathers onto the ground close to the rock formations.

“Welcome to Val.” Val said smiling, “Time for some refreshments, right?!” I didn’t say anything, whereupon Val took a wineskin out of its leather knapsack and drank from it. It wasn’t wine, though. Although the colour was deep red, the liquid was too thick.

 

I could not tell what I had for a drink. The way Val handed me the wineskin felt like part of an ancient ritual. Val went down on its knees, lifted the wineskin above its head and handed it over to me. Already with the first sip, I noticed the unusualness of taste and texture as soon as the liquid reached my tongue. An odourless, thin puree with a taste that comes closest to a smooth combination of beetroot, spinach and Hokkaido pumpkin. The drink didn’t keep its promise, though. It was refreshing at first, but it made me feel surprisingly exhausted later. Like a leaden blanket of fatigue descending onto my shoulders. The sun seemed to be setting quicker after that, darkness was creeping up on the mountain’s body.

“Val?” I said after a while. And Val knew immediately what I was going to ask. Val spread its arms ceremoniously and moved slowly in a circle as if presenting the outlandish scenery to me.

“Welcome to the valley of Val.” Val said.

“The valley of Val?” I said.

“This is where you have to be strong. Because this is exactly where you are supposed to pass over.” Val said without any stir of emotion. I, however, was shocked. And then it dawned on me. I hadn’t failed to notice that with every inch of the sun’s setting the surrounding two half circles of snow-capped mountains bent upwards and closed in on each other – like a pair of giant jaws.

Val looked at me and it knew that I was slowly beginning to understand. For some reason, this put a smile on its face. It didn’t take long for the sun to set and the mountain jaws to close entirely. The last beam of sunlight felt warm on my skin. Then the darkness swallowed me. Once it was completely dark, I stopped feeling anything. I suppose that is what you are going to experience at the threshold to the unknown.

 

I could not tell why Val had to bring me up here, why it had to be me, and the birds of course, and why it had to happen the way it just did. Maybe just because my time simply had come. But this remains yet to be seen.

 

(The story will be continued with It Turns Off Pain.)